July 13 1/2, 2005
Just for a kick, try out the version of "Hang on Sloopy" by Die Toten Hosen, from Germany.
With George Bush busy handing over ever more control of the economic lives of U.S. citizens to mega-corporations, the Homeland Security Keystone Kops, the banks, and credit card companies, it's time to crack open a little vintage Clash: the Guns of Brixton.
When they kick down your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head?
Or on the trigger of your gun?
Sound a little unduly violent? I just watched video of the Portland demonstrations against George Bush, when he made an exclusive appearance there before a gathering of rich Republican Party faithful. A number of things struck me about the video, and the meeting, and the general circumstances, even beyond the fact that the police pepper-sprayed infants in their mothers' arms.
1. I don't, as a rule, believe that people should try to achieve through demonstrations and violence what they could not achieve through the ballot box. Generally.
2. The Motion Picture Association of America and other copyright owners did not achieve anything through the ballot box either. Microsoft didn't run a campaign during the election asking people to support it's court battles over it's monopoly. Boeing didn't do any polls asking if the public thought it should hire consultants straight out of the very Pentagon offices that made purchase decisions involving their products.Bush never campaigned on the idea of taking more rights away from consumers and artists and giving them to the massive corporate copyright pimps that have a stranglehold on the media in the U.S. He never allowed consumer groups to have any voice in the drafting of new legislation.
No, Bush campaigned against gay marriage and in favor of patriotism and tax cuts.
But all of those corporations benefited from legislation passed after they made massive donations to his re-election campaign (and the re-election campaigns of his friends in Congress).
Is that any less democratic than marching down Main Street waving a placard and chanting slogans?
3. The average American did not ask for and would never have voted for the new bankruptcy legislation which makes even more difficult for a family that is ruined financially to make a clean start... ever. Nor would the average American vote for the new tort reforms, or for a tacked in provision that would exempt gun manufacturers for any liability for criminal wrongdoings as a result of lax procedures on the part of gun store owners.
Every day, Congress passes and the President signs legislation that is the result of special interests paying big bucks to the Republican Party and having private meetings with legislators and White House operatives to which the public never gets invited.
4. The police were dressed up like Robocops-- all black leather and bulletproof vests and dark helmets and batons and pepper spray. They video-taped the protesters, without, presumably, their permission (amazing how impotent copyright law is when it could be used against the corporate establishment). They informed the demonstrators that they had to get off the street and onto the sidewalk. Then they informed them that they had to get off the sidewalks and into the park. Then they informed them that the park had to be vacated immediately for reasons of national security. Then they moved in and pepper-sprayed the demonstrators.
5. If I was George Bush-- or, more likely, his allies in the state and municipal governments-- it would be very, very easy to develop a procedure through which the police can beat up and intimidate protesters with impunity. All you have to do is have some people infiltrate the demonstrators and start smashing windows, throwing rocks at police cars, and yell obscenities. Make sure this gets filmed for broadcast on Fox News or CNN. The vast majority of the sleeping public, drugged out, overweight, exhausted from their minimum wage jobs, will feel that police brutality is not only justified, but absolutely demanded by the situation. They mostly wouldn't even mind if you locked up a number of these people without charges or access to lawyers.
Am I talking radicalization here? You have to keep in mind that, with the exception, perhaps, of Karl Rove (who won't care about anything beyond the end of Bush's current term anyway), most of the people in power in the present U.S. government are stupid and short-sighted. They are not sure just how far they go before a backlash develops and people turn against them and we start a long term of relatively liberal leadership, possibly in 2008.